Cooking Tips

Meat and Fish

1). Always marinate fresh meat.

2). Always cut beef across the grain.

This helps make it more tender.

3). Cut the meat into uniform pieces

so that it will cook more evenly.

4). When cooking meat or poultry, make sure that the wok is very hot before adding the food.

5). If preparing stir-fried meat and vegetables, stir-fry the meat first and set it aside. Usually you will return it to the wok with a sauce during the final stages of cooking.

Cooking With Oil:

1). When adding oil for stir-frying, drizzle the oil down the sides of the wok.

2). When deep-frying, to tell if the oil is hot enough, simply stick a chopstick in the wok. When the oil sizzles all around it, you can begin adding the food.

Sauce and Seasoning Tips:

1). Always use fresh ginger, not powdered.

2). The formula for mixing cornstarch and water is 1 to 2 or 1 to 4: for example, 1 tablespoon of cornstarch with 2 tablespoons of water.

3). Don’t use more cornstarch than called for in the recipe.

Rice:

1). For best results when cooking rice, use long grain rice.

2). When making fried rice, use cold cooked rice, preferably at least one day old.

When Should I Blanch Vegetables?

1). Blanching - sometimes called water blanching - consists of plunging food into boiling water to partially cook it. Many recipes call for crisper, more dense vegetables to be blanched, especially before stir-frying. There are several reasons for doing this

2). It helps seal in the color, flavor and nutrients of the vegetables. (Green vegetables turn a wonderful bright green when blanched).

3). Blanching crisper, denser

vegetables (like broccoli and cauliflower) cuts down on the amount of time they need to be stir-fried. This means they can be added to the stir-fry with less dense vegetables and everything will be cooked at the same time.

4). A shorter stir-frying time means blanched vegetables absorb less oil. (Not a major consideration but something to think about if you're on a diet).

5). A shorter stir-frying time means blanched vegetables absorb less oil. (Not a major consideration but something to think about if you're on a diet).

Skewer secrets.

1. Cut pieces of food into uniform sizes to ensure even cooking.

2. Leave 1/4-inch spaces between food pieces on skewers .

3. Rub metal skewers with vegetable oil before threading with pork to it from sticking.

4. Soak wooden skewers in water for 30 minutes before threading with food to prevent them from burning on the grill.

5. Thread larger food pieces on two parallel skewers to stabilize the food and allow for easier turning.

In my Opinion:

Fire was discovered and cooking closely followed to be known to

man. With this discovery was the advent of different foods. They bloomed and paved the way to a more delicious human life. Menus are even cultural replica of different countries. Nowadays, cooking has grown into a hobby as well.

Cooking may be a profession for some people. With this, they earn a living. Others pursue it as a lifetime career and travel distances because of their strength in cooking. Cooking may just mean as the act of preparing food in a raw phase and use heat in order for humans to digest it easily. However, it may mean a lot to some people especially those who consider it a form of living. And, those who take it as a good form of hobby regard it of value.

Cooking as to income made a lot of lives better. All over the world restaurant businesses make it big.

Even small eateries and ordinary sellers of cheap cooked food in public markets earn income through it. For most countries, people are fond of eating out and that makes the rise of fast-food restaurant industry very fast. Franchising enters the scene and the income of a country somehow being helped out.

COOKING AND KIDS: